I read recently (albeit I cannot attest to the veracity of the source) that the practice of utilizing “shame paintings” for financial crimes/debts had fallen into disuse by the time Trionfi cards were introduced to Italy. Can anyone tell me if research supports this contention?

Thank you for your kind response to my inquiry. I apologize for the delay in my own. It was not intentional. I have not visited this forum for a few months due to my hectic schedule.

mikeh wrote:Kate wrote. in August

I read recently (albeit I cannot attest to the veracity of the source) that the practice of utilizing “shame paintings” for financial crimes/debts had fallen into disuse by the time Trionfi cards were introduced to Italy. Can anyone tell me if research supports this contention?

Frankly, I do not recall my source at this time, but it was not the cited discussion between you and Ross (thank you for the reference).

However, if I may summarize the salient points of your discussion—and please correct me where I err:

• According to Edgerton (1985; as cited by you and Ross), Florentine statutes specified the use of pittura infamante (shame paintings) for commercial fraud, beginning in 1283/84 and until the 16th Century.

• However, according to Ortalli (as cited in Edgerton, 1985), whereas, there are numerous recorded instances of persons depicted in Florentine shame paintings for acts of treason, there are few recorded instances of persons so depicted for commercial fraud. How this scarcity of evidence in the latter case should be interpreted in view of the city’s existing statutory laws remains a matter of conjecture. It is also interesting to note that contemporary, Florentine law books do not specify the exact nature of the punishment for treason. Edgerton speculates that the Florentine government may not have wanted its “hands tied” as to the punishment exacted for treason, given the heinous nature of the crime.

• Further, it is not certain—research on this issue being somewhat limited—whether Florence was the only Italian city state to utilize shame paintings for commercial fraud. For instance, in 1390, Giangaleazzo Visconti banned the use of shame paintings, asserting that the numerous depictions of various falsifiers—vile notaries, moneychangers, and merchants, in addition to false witnesses—on the walls of Milan’s new palace made it appear to foreigners as if the whole of Milan was so inclined, thus, seeming to indicate that the practice was, indeed, utilized for commercial fraud in Milan until 1390.

• Additionally, it is not clear if the earlier shame paintings (regardless of the crime alleged) depicted the offender hanging upside down. According to Edgerton, the earliest known shame painting showing two offenders hanging upside down (for the act of treason) was commissioned in Rome, 1347. The first known instance of a Florentine shame painting showing the perpetrator hanging upside down was commissioned on 13 October 1377. In this latter case, Ridolofo da Camerino, “traitor to the Holy Mother Church, and the people and Commune of Florence,” was shown suspended from a gallows by the left foot. “On his head at the bottom,” wrote an anonymous commentator, “is a big mitra [of Justice]. At the side and tied to his neck is a devil. His arms are spread out, and from both right and left hand he gives the finger [fa le fica] to the Church and to the Commune of Florence.” Conversely, an earlier, Florentine shame painting of Walter VI of Brienne and his henchmen (ca. 1343) which, according to Vasari, remained on the Bargello wall until 1550 [!], presumably showed the perpetrators hanging upright from the neck and with a mitre of Justice on their heads. Edgerton notes that another shame painting of Brienne "with devilish features and dark and scraggly beard" was composed 20 years later (ca. 1363?). Here, Brienne appeared in a setting suggesting the Last Judgment and with an animal, which Edgerton speculates may have been inspired by Dante’s portrayal, within Inferno, of Fraud (Geryon?).

• Edgerton reports that, apart from Florence and a few, sporadic instances elsewhere, the practice of shame paintings generally died out in Italy and the rest of Europe by the 15th Century. He further purports that the last documented use of shame paintings in Florence were those of eight, designated Pazzi conspirators rendered by Botticelli in 1478 on behalf of Lorenzo dei’ Medici. Here, according to the 16th Century commentator, Anonimo Magliobecchiano, seven, already deceased conspirators were depicted hanging by the neck in an upright position, in addition to an eighth (Napoleone Francese), who had, thus, far evaded capture, hanging upside down by one foot. Lorenzo composed a verse for each of the culprits, characterizing his brother’s assassin [Bernardo di Bandino Baroncelli?], who was, apparently, one of the seven shown hanging in an upright position, as the “new Judas.” These works were unique in that, by custom, Florentine pittura infamante were reserved for living culprits, who had escaped the city in contempt of court. Presumably, the upside down positioning of Napoleone Francese—viz. as opposed that of the other seven—reflected this custom.

• Of particular note are a set of eight shame paintings by artist, Andrea del Castagno (“Andrea degl'Impiccati”), commissioned by the Medici, and showing the traitorous Rinaldo degli Albizzi and seven designated henchmen hanging upside down for having fought against their Florentine homeland at Anghiari (1440). Interestingly, the use of eight shame paintings by Botticelli in relation to the Pazzi Conspiracy and eight by Castagno in reference to the betrayal at Anghiari possibly reflects the convention, derived from Macrobius, of associating this number with the virtue, Justice. It echoes the custom utilized in a number of documented shame paintings of placing a mitre of justice upon the head of the culprit, as well as the numbering scheme employed in some Tarot decks for this virtue.

Mike H wrote:
Before this time, it is known that people (not historic individuals) hanging upside down had been depicted in hell, as part of Last Judgment scenes, as in Giotto's Arena Chapel (p. 28), but also for traitors. Edgerton comments (p. 87):

Pittura infamante artists elsewhere in Italy had already devised this denigrating pose, which was to become the standard for victims of the art during the next centuries. (84) Actually, the upside-down figure as a symbol of infamy traces back to antiquity. Trecento Florentines had no trouble recognizing its meaning from the popular image on the tarot card, or the occasional upside-down suspension of an actual living culprit (often a Jew), or in other painted hell scenes such as Giotto's Last Judgment in Padua.

Others may, of course, arrive at a different interpretation of the Scrovegni Chapel’s Last Judgment (ca. 1304-5) by Giotto. However, I believe that the three groups of figures depicted hanging in hell within this work possibly have reference to the three Theological Virtues or their antitypes (Cf. detail of Hell in Giotto’s Last Judgment, below, which Huck kindly provided in an earlier post with the groups highlighted):

Giotto.Last Judgment.Hell.jpg (86.93 KiB) Viewed 8037 times

1) Infidelity (antitype of Faith), as manifested by idolatry and its associated sexual promiscuity. A man and woman hang upside down, dangling from cable hooks, which pierce their genitals. Adjacent, a woman hangs upright from her hair for self-idolatry or vanity; a man hangs from his mouth for blasphemy.

2) Avarice (antitype of Charity/Love), as manifested by usury. Moneylenders hang upright from their necks; money bags dangle directly above their heads (see detail, below).
3) Despair (antitype of Hope), as represented at the lowest level by Judas Iscariot—a suicide dangling upright from the neck and with guts spilling out from an open wound at his abdomen. This contrasts as well with the chapel’s post-Resurrection Ascension of Christ, which resembles Giotto’s Hope, thus, implying that these feelings of desperation arise from a lack of hope in this event or exclusion, therefrom.

You’ll recall that Giotto depicted the four Cardinal Virtues plus the three Theological Virtues and their respective antitypes in the following order (moving from the east, adjacent the altar, to the west entrance/Last Judgment, with Justice/Injustice at center of the chapel):

Here, Enrico degli Scrovegni and a clerical member of the Augustinian military-religious order popularly known as the Cavalieri Gaudenti (more properly, Knights of St. Mary of the Tower or Mary, Mother of God) kneel as co-donors as they present a symbolic model of the chapel to the Virgin, in red robe, for Caritas. The Virgin is flanked by a figure in a transparent, light pink robe and another in green—possibly for Faith and Hope. According to its constitutions, the local chapter of the Cavalieri to which Enrico belonged as a lay member had two principle aims: devotion to the Virgin and the suppression of usury (Rough, R. H. 1980. The Art Bulletin, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 24-35). Further, the Virgin, to whom the chapel was dedicated both in her role of Annunciate and Caritas, purportedly wears the liturgical robes of a deacon, who had the responsibility in the early church of dispensing alms to the poor as an act of Charity (Paoletti, J.T. and Radke, G. M. 2005. Art in Renaissance Italy, pp. 75).

The chapel’s depiction of Avarice was not peculiar to Giotto. We find like depictions of this vice north of the Alps, for instance. However, Enrico degli Scrovegni purportedly felt compelled to make recompense for the sins of his father, who made his fortune through usury (Cf. Dante’s Inferno, Seventh Circle, where the elder Scrovegni is portrayed among other moneylenders with a purse tied to his neck). Likewise, we see a conflation of sorts between the sins of Envy and Avarice through Dante’s peculiar “mirroring effect” within the Commedia—viz. where Inferno’s Seventh Circle equates with Purgatory’s Second Circle of the Envious.

Similarly, the association between idolatry and sexual promiscuity was not, of course, an invention of Giotto. That said, the chapel was purportedly built on the site of a pagan arena, which still retained during the late Medieval period antique Roman statues of a sexually explicit nature and for which the adjacent, wooded area was given the place name of Il Satiro. The ruins of this pagan amphitheatre were also a contemporary center for prostitution and other nefarious activities. It was hoped that with the building of the chapel such antisocial behaviour would cease. However, the local folk evidently had a different conception of the virtue, Love or Charity. The Annunciate festivities connected with the chapel purportedly proved to promote, rather than inhibit acts of salacious frivolity and were subsequently suppressed in the late 16th Century. (Pope Sixtus V also suppressed the Cavalieri Gaudenti for alleged corruption. On the other hand, Dante, reflecting Florentine prejudice, placed members of this order in Inferno’s Eighth Circle of hypocrites.)

But returning to Milan . . .

Ross wrote:
It seems what we have then is a continuation of the practice that originated the shame painting, and continued to inform it, but a ban in Milan on the painting itself. This ban and the punishments for breaking it were not lifted by any subsequent Visconti or Sforza that I can find. But the practice of hanging by the foot for high crimes like treason continued under Gian Galeazzo’s successors, like his son Filippo Maria -

From a ruling of Filippo Maria of September 1, 1422 we read how those guilty of crimes against the state were punished according to the decrees of his forefathers and the statutes of the city of Milan. The criminal would be dragged behind a horse to the place of execution, and there hanged on the scaffold by one foot; or attached to a turning wheel, or quartered; his dismembered body parts were attached to the gates of the city, and his head on a metal pole, which stood at the top of the tower of the town hall.

We have a terrible decree of the Count of Virtù (Gian Galeazzo Visconti), dated September 13, 1393. He prescribes that he who conspires against the state, should be dragged behind a horse cum asside, along the most frequented way, to the place of justice, hanged by a foot to the scaffold, and to remain there until he dies; however while he is still alive he should be given food and drink: detur tamen eidem de cibo, et potu interim donec vivet.

I find it of some possible interest that hanging from a scaffold by one foot served as an alternative form of execution to not only quartering, but also breaking on the wheel (and with all forms ultimately resulting in dismemberment and decapitation). That is, it’s easy to see how the breaking wheel could be linked for reasons of philosophical speculation (or in context of the Tarot’s larger narrative?) with Fortuna’s Wheel. I’m thinking, of course, of the CVI Hanged Man, who is pictured per convention dangling upside down by one foot from a scaffold, but who is also idiosyncratically characterized as having an animal’s tail—a motif regularly encountered in relation to the downward path of Fortuna’s Wheel. Then, again, there’s the repeated association between this form of execution or pittura infamante and Justice, whether imposed in this life by worldly authorities or the next at the Last Judgment. Although the connotation of the two bags of gold pictured in the right and left hands of the CVI Hanged Man (or his counterparts in other Southern decks) remains a matter of contention and allowing that this trope may have more than one meaning, I am still impressed by his resemblance to an anthropomorphic set of evenly balanced scales.

Kate wrote:
Others may, of course, arrive at a different interpretation of the Scrovegni Chapel’s Last Judgment (ca. 1304-5) by Giotto. However, I believe that the three groups of figures depicted hanging in hell within this work possibly have reference to the three Theological Virtues or their antitypes (Cf. detail of Hell in Giotto’s Last Judgment, below, which Huck kindly provided in an earlier post with the groups highlighted):

The picture is from 1304-05, so before Dante's "La divina commedia" (1307-20). The commedia is not a painting, but nonetheless a "literary shame-painting" of some dimension (which naturally inspired painters to take motifs of it; an perhaps it inspired shame paintings generally.

German wiki says, that Giotto Dante and were friends and that Giotto is mentioned in the commedia.

Dante had reason to complain:

Florence and politics[edit]
Dante, like most Florentines of his day, was embroiled in the Guelph–Ghibelline conflict. He fought in the Battle of Campaldino (June 11, 1289), with the Florentine Guelphs against Arezzo Ghibellines; then in 1294 he was among the escorts of Charles Martel of Anjou (grandson of Charles I of Naples, more commonly called Charles of Anjou) while he was in Florence. To further his political career, he became a pharmacist. He did not intend to practice as one, but a law issued in 1295 required nobles aspiring to public office to be enrolled in one of the Corporazioni delle Arti e dei Mestieri, so Dante obtained admission to the Apothecaries' Guild. This profession was not inappropriate, since at that time books were sold from apothecaries' shops. As a politician he accomplished little, but held various offices over some years in a city rife with political unrest.

After defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs divided into two factions: the White Guelphs (Guelfi Bianchi)—Dante's party, led by Vieri dei Cerchi—and the Black Guelphs (Guelfi Neri), led by Corso Donati. Although the split was along family lines at first, ideological differences arose based on opposing views of the papal role in Florentine affairs, with the Blacks supporting the Pope and the Whites wanting more freedom from Rome. The Whites took power first and expelled the Blacks. In response, Pope Boniface VIII planned a military occupation of Florence. In 1301, Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip IV of France, was expected to visit Florence because the Pope had appointed him peacemaker for Tuscany. But the city's government had treated the Pope's ambassadors badly a few weeks before, seeking independence from papal influence. It was believed that Charles had received other unofficial instructions, so the council sent a delegation to Rome to ascertain the Pope's intentions. Dante was one of the delegates.

Exile and death
Pope Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301), Charles of Valois entered Florence with the Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. A new Black Guelph government was installed, and Cante de' Gabrielli da Gubbio was appointed podestà of the city. In March 1302, Dante, along with the Gherardini family, was condemned to exile for two years and ordered to pay a large fine.[6] The poet was still in Rome where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs. He was condemned to perpetual exile, and if he returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could be burned at the stake. (The city council of Florence finally passed a motion rescinding Dante's sentence in June 2008.)

Florence made a shameful offer, that Dante might come back against paying a fine and begging for excuse (1315). Dante refused, and his condemnation was repeated. He was buried in Ravenna. Florence attempted to get his bones in the course of the centuries, which caused trouble between Florence and Ravenna. In Santa Croce they even arranged a burial place, but it is empty.
The whole is a Game between Shame and Fame. ... :-) ... they loved to express their emotions.

Before I forget, in my edited post, above, I added some illustrations respecting those figures (8 total!), which Giotto depicted hanging in Hell at the Last Judgment.

Huck wrote:
The picture [Giotto’s Last Judgment] is from 1304-05, so before Dante's "La divina commedia" (1307-20).

Very true. Perhaps, Giotto’s work served in some part as an influence on Dante.

Huck wrote:
The commedia is not a painting, but nonetheless a "literary shame-painting" of some dimension (which naturally inspired painters to take motifs of it; an perhaps it inspired shame paintings generally.

That, apparently, is the opinion of Edgerton:

Edgerton notes that another [Florentine] shame painting of Brienne "with devilish features and dark and scraggly beard" was composed 20 years later (ca. 1363?). Here, Brienne appeared in a setting suggesting the Last Judgment and with an animal, which Edgerton speculates may have been inspired by Dante’s portrayal, within Inferno, of Fraud (Geryon?).

Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge the accuracy of Edgerton’s assumption without the illustration at hand for examination.

German wiki says, that Giotto Dante and were friends and that Giotto is mentioned in the commedia.

"O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipt
E’en in its height of verdue, if an age
Less bright succeed not. Cimabue thought
To lord it over painting’s field; and now
The cry is Giotto’s, and his [Cimabue’s] name eclipsed . . . .
Worldly fame is but a blast of wind,
That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name."
(Purgatory, Canto IX, 91-100)

Huck wrote:
Dante had reason to complain:

In March 1302, Dante, along with the Gherardini family, was condemned to exile for two years and ordered to pay a large fine.[6] The poet was still in Rome where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs. He was condemned to perpetual exile, and if he returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could be burned at the stake. (The city council of Florence finally passed a motion rescinding Dante's sentence in June 2008.)

Interesting. I knew that Dante was condemned to exile; further, that he was ordered to pay a fine and make a confession of his guilt at the Baptistery as a condition for his safe return to Florence. I was not aware, however, that he faced possible burning at the stake.

The general "critical voice of the poet" reached possibly a new climax with Dante, at least for Italy and the medieval time and this created reasons to be friendly to humanists for practical reasons, cause they were potentially dangerous. Better to hire them for the spread of fame instead earning shame.

Well, Dante's master, pope Bonifacius VIII was a doubtful guide, and if he took Dante to create a splendid name in the future, the experiment went totally wrong. A few years later Bonifacius was a public scandal.

Dante was so polite or political wise to leave him not mentioned in his comedy and arranged his plot in the year 1300 (invention of the Jubilee year by Bonifacio, intended to appear once in 100 years first).

Emperor Henry VIII, whom Dante identified as a great hope, indeed engaged for the arranged fame, at least with him the "9 heroes" were manifested as a triumphal arrangement and the journey to Rome was mirrored in a manuscript. Who knows, what else had happened, if he had survived Italy. So Dante's dream wasn't satisfied. Petrarca took some profit from the grandson Charles IV later, and likely intended his "Trionfi" for him. But it didn't work out, also Charles IV was not good enough for Petrarca's hopes. Despite some broken, too noble, dreams the humanistic way took it's course and was something solid between pro and contra.

6th of April was a traditional date for Good Friday, at least for Petrarca (he saw Laura at a Good Friday, 6th of April 1327 for the first time, and she died at a Good Friday 6th of April 1348). If this was also so for Dante, then the journey at 8th of April was traditionally Easter Sunday (?). I don't know. The journey would have then been in the week after Eastern, well, in the Jubilee year 1300, so somehow in the most holy days of a century.

I don't know enough about Dante. Does he give a reference to Eastern ? Petrarca's Good Fridays weren't really Good Fridays, at least not according the standard Eastern calculation (at least one is wrong).
German wiki says ...

The year 1300 contains a "13", and 13 possibly meant death.
Jesus died with 33 years in his 34th year of life, c. 33 1/3 years old.
The Commedia has 100 chapters, parted in 3 parts of 33 songs + 1 prolog.

In 1300 ... New Advent

At the beginning of 1300 the papal jubilee was proclaimed by Boniface VIII. It is doubtful whether Dante was among the pilgrims who flocked to Rome. Florence was in a disastrous condition, the ruling Guelph party having split into two factions, known as Bianchi and Neri, "Whites" and "Blacks", which were led by Vieri de' Cerchi and Corso Donati, respectively. Roughly speaking, the Bianchi were the constitutional party, supporting the burgher government and the Ordinances of Justice; the Neri, at once more turbulent and more aristocratic, relied on the support of the populace, and were strengthened by the favour of the pope, who disliked and mistrusted the recent developments of the democratic policy of the republic. The discovery of a plot on the part of certain Florentines in the papal service (18 April) and a collision between the two factions, in which blood was shed (1 May), brought things to a crisis. On 7 May Dante was sent on an unimportant embassy to San Gemignano. Shortly after his return he was elected one of the six priors who for two months, together with the gonfaloniere, formed the Signoria, the chief magistracy of the republic. His term of office was from 15 June to 15 August. Together with his colleagues. he confirmed the anti-Papal measures of his predecessors, banished the leaders of both factions, and offered such opposition to the papal legate, Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, that the latter returned to Rome and laid Florence under an interdict.

Bonifacius VIII was a doubtful guide, and if he took Dante to create a splendid name in the future, the experiment went totally wrong.

Indeed. In Dante’s Commedia (Inf. 19.49-63), the tortured shade of Pope Nicholas III who, like all the dead, can see into the future, “predicts” that Boniface upon his death (d. 1303) would become an inhabitant of Hell’s Eighth Circle (Fraud), Third Bolgia (Simony), positioned upside down with head caught in the vice of a rocky crevice as if above a baptismal font, feet in the air and perpetually burned by a punishing fire. Boniface, in turn, would be followed shortly, thereafter, by Clement V (d. 1314).

Boniface, for Dante, is personal and public enemy number one. Benedetto Caetani, a talented and ambitious scholar of canon law, rose quickly through the ranks of the church and was elected pope, as Boniface VIII, soon after the abdication of Pope Celestine V in 1294. (There were rumors that Boniface had intimidated Celestine into abdicating so he could become pope himself.) Boniface's pontificate was marked by a consolidation and expansion of church power, based on the view—expressed in a papal bull (Unam sanctam)—that the pope was not only the spiritual head of Christendom but also superior to the emperor in the secular, temporal realm. Dante, by contrast, firmly held that the pope and emperor should be co-equals with a balance of power between the pope's spiritual authority and the emperor's secular authority. Boniface's political ambitions directly affected Dante when the pope—under the false pretense of peace-making—sent Charles of Valois, a French prince, to Florence; Charles' intervention allowed the black guelphs to overthrow the ruling white guelphs, whose leaders—including Dante, in Rome at the time to argue Florence's case before Boniface—were sentenced to exile. Dante now settles his score with Boniface in the Divine Comedy by damning the pope even before his death in 1303.

Granted, the inhabitants of Hell’s Eighth Circle, Third Bolgia, were not depicted hanging from a gallows by one foot. However, their inverse positioning, coupled with their association with financial fraud of a sort in Dante’s literary pittura infamante, completed sometime before his own death in 1320, is nonetheless intriguing. It predates the first documented shame painting in Rome (1347), showing two culprits hanging upside down (for treason), as well as the first recorded, Florentine shame painting (October 13, 1377) of Ridolofo da Camerino, “traitor to the Holy Mother Church, and the people and Commune of Florence,” likewise, shown dangling upside down from a scaffold by one foot.

On the other hand, Giovanni da Modena’s Last Judgment (ca. 1410, Basilica di San Petronio, Bologna), portrays figures in Hell hanging upside down from a tree and above a natural cistern with the labels “idolatria” and “Ninus Rex” (Andrea Vitali). At a tree immediately adjacent, another figure hangs upright from his tongue. The identifying caption would seem to link his crime with the Arian heresy. This comports with the hanging figures of Giotto’s Last Judgment (ca.1304-5), which I believe represent Infidelity, antitype of Faith.

Huck wrote:
6th of April was a traditional date for Good Friday, at least for Petrarca (he saw Laura at a Good Friday, 6th of April 1327 for the first time, and she died at a Good Friday 6th of April 1348). If this was also so for Dante, then the journey at 8th of April was traditionally Easter Sunday (?). I don't know. The journey would have then been in the week after Eastern, well, in the Jubilee year 1300, so somehow in the most holy days of a century.

It’s widely held, I believe, that the Commedia’s opening scene—viz. with Dante in the Dark Woods, wherein, he has lost the “straight way”—commences in the late evening of Maundy Thursday and, thus, correlates with Christ’s Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In contemporary Catholicism, the Agony in the Garden represented the First Station of the Cross. Maundy Thursday also initiated the so-called Easter Triduum or period linked with Christ’s Crucifixion and death, descent into and Harrowing of Hell, and Resurrection on Easter Sunday. (Dante and Virgil likewise emerge from Hell on the morning of Easter Sunday.)

I can’t speak for the date of 8 April 1300 which, to my knowledge, was arrived at by later commentators. However, Dante (by way of the demon leader, Malacoda) provides the following dating for an earthquake related to Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, wherein, the bridges between the Fifth and Sixth Bolgias in Inferno’s Eighth circle were destroyed (Inf. XXI 112-114):

Five hours from this hour yesterday,
one thousand and two hundred sixty-six
years passed since that roadway was shattered here.

I was wrong. The number was actually “333,” which was incorporated into the Aeneid’s Prophecy of Jupiter (Book 1, lines 254-96).

Venus, upset by the cruel treatment her son, Aeneas, and the other Trojans were suffering at Juno’s hands, protests to Jupiter that he has forgotten his oath that a new race of men would emerge from the remnants of Troy to rule a great empire. To calm her, Jupiter discloses what the Fates have in store.

Aeneas, who is destined for immortality, will establish Lavinium, where he will rule for three years. Thereafter, Ascanius, now bearing the surname “Iulus” (cf. gens Julia), will succeed Aeneas and reign for 30 years in the new settlement of Alba Longa. Ascanius’ descendants will then reign in Alba Longa for 300 years until Romulus—the son of Mars and Alba Longa’s Trojan priestess-queen—founds Rome. Thus, the time from Aeneas’ founding of a colony on the Italian peninsula until the official establishment of Rome by Romulus will take 3+30+300 or 333 years. Juno will eventually favor Rome which, thus, will enjoy “empire without limit.” The conquering hero, Julius Caesar, shall ascend to Rome’s Imperial throne; at his death and deification, the Iron Age will end and a new, golden age of peace under his successor will be born (Pax Augusta).

Interestingly, according to Hollander and Russo (2003), Dante was apparently under the mistaken impression, gained from Brunetto Latini’s Tresor (1.87.2-4), that Constantine transferred his capital to Constantinople 333 years after the birth of Christ.

And thus the 333 years necessary, in Virgil’s calculation, for the founding of Rome, Aeneas to Romulus, were countered by, in Dante’s calculation, the 333 years from the empire’s greatest glory [the Pax Augusta during which Christ was born] to its disgraceful abandonment of its rightful seat. The 333 that Dante apparently found at hand in Brunetto’s book would likely have seemed to him, in light of Virgil’s positive use of that number, to suggest a sum (333 + 333) equal to the number of the beast. The negative political implications of the resulting 666 (Aeneas to Romulus, Christ to Constantine), reflecting the Donation and its dire result, are not difficult to grasp. http://www.princeton.edu/~dante/ebdsa/h ... 32703.html

Indeed, respecting the Donation, Dante writes:

Ah, Constantine, what wickedness was born—
and not from your conversion—from the dower
that you bestowed upon the first rich father! (Inf. 19.115-17)

It is conceivably in this light according to Hollander and Russo (2003) that Dante’s famous prophecy (of Purg. 33!) respecting a “515” or the “eagle’s heir” should be understood.

Kate wrote:
Indeed. In Dante’s Commedia (Inf. 19.49-63), the tortured shade of Pope Nicholas III who, like all the dead, can see into the future, “predicts” that Boniface upon his death (d. 1303) would become an inhabitant of Hell’s Eighth Circle (Fraud), Third Bolgia (Simony), positioned upside down with head caught in the vice of a rocky crevice as if above a baptismal font, feet in the air and perpetually burned by a punishing fire. Boniface, in turn, would be followed shortly, thereafter, by Clement V (d. 1314).

So he is mentioned, I didn't know this. Wiki states ...

Pope Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301), Charles of Valois entered Florence with the Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. A new Black Guelph government was installed, and Cante de' Gabrielli da Gubbio was appointed podestà of the city. In March 1302, Dante, along with the Gherardini family, was condemned to exile for two years and ordered to pay a large fine.[6] The poet was still in Rome where the Pope had "suggested" he stay, and was therefore considered an absconder. He did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs.

So Bonifacio must have preferred him for unknown reasons, possibly for his poetical talents.

I'm fighting momentary my way through a biography of James Joyce. As a young man (22 years) he had focussed in his further life on one day, 16th of June 1904, a day in the week, when he became acquainted with his future wife Nora (10 of June). And he wrote the Ulysses about it. A few months later then June 16 he left Dublin forever, never to come back, as a poet in some styled fury, with a lot of critical words.

Isn't that a little bit similar to Dante and Florence? Dante took a week in 1300, Joyce only one day.

...

It’s widely held, I believe, that the Commedia’s opening scene—viz. with Dante in the Dark Woods, wherein, he has lost the “straight way”—commences in the late evening of Maundy Thursday and, thus, correlates with Christ’s Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In contemporary Catholicism, the Agony in the Garden represented the First Station of the Cross. Maundy Thursday also initiated the so-called Easter Triduum or period linked with Christ’s Crucifixion and death, descent into and Harrowing of Hell, and Resurrection on Easter Sunday. (Dante and Virgil likewise emerge from Hell on the morning of Easter Sunday.)

I can’t speak for the date of 8 April 1300 which, to my knowledge, was arrived at by later commentators. However, Dante (by way of the demon leader, Malacoda) provides the following dating for an earthquake related to Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, wherein, the bridges between the Fifth and Sixth Bolgias in Inferno’s Eighth circle were destroyed (Inf. XXI 112-114):

Five hours from this hour yesterday,
one thousand and two hundred sixty-six
years passed since that roadway was shattered here.

I've looked for this Italian earthquake in 1266, but found nothing. But that's around the suspected birthday of Dante (1260-1265 is estimated, May or June), but it's rather precisely a possible time, when Jesus "was made", or a little later.

33 1/3 year + 9 months production time makes 34 years.7th (?) or 8th of April 1300 minus 34 years = 7th of 8th of April 1266. Annunciation is traditionally 25th of March. A difference of about 13 or 14 days with possibly "mystical meaning" (?). And possibly Dante had also this 6th April of Petrarca (?)

Huck wrote:
I'm fighting momentary my way through a biography of James Joyce. As a young man (22 years) he had focussed in his further life on one day, 16th of June 1904, a day in the week, when he became acquainted with his future wife Nora (10 of June). And he wrote the Ulysses about it. A few months later then June 16 he left Dublin forever, never to come back, as a poet in some styled fury, with a lot of critical words.

Isn't that a little bit similar to Dante and Florence? Dante took a week in 1300, Joyce only one day.

It’s been a long time since I read Joyce’ Ulysses and, thus, have forgotten much. But I can see how a comparative study between the Commedia and Ulysses might be enlightening.

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.”

“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

On the other hand, Oscar Wilde opined:

In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.

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I've looked for this Italian earthquake in 1266, but found nothing. But that's around the suspected birthday of Dante (1260-1265 is estimated, May or June), but it's rather precisely a possible time, when Jesus "was made", or a little later.

33 1/3 year + 9 months production time makes 34 years.7th (?) or 8th of April 1300 minus 34 years = 7th of 8th of April 1266. Annunciation is traditionally 25th of March. A difference of about 13 or 14 days with possibly "mystical meaning" (?). And possibly Dante had also this 6th April of Petrarca (?)

I don’t completely understand where you’re going with this, Huck. However, assuming 1266 years had passed since the Crucifixion, and assuming, moreover, that the Crucifixion took place in 34 AD, we would, of course, arrive at the year 1300, when the Jubilee initiated by Boniface took place.

I had never considered that “1266” might have reference to the year of Dante’s birth. However, it is certainly possible; further, it is symbolically attractive, if Dante’s journey, here, has reference to the Via Crucis. To my knowledge, the estimated year of Dante’s birth is based on the Commedia (Inf. 1.1-2), wherein, he states that he found himself in the Dark Wood before he had reached full or mid-age. Again, assuming a total lifespan of 70 years in accordance with Biblical tradition, this would, presumably, put him at under Age 35, and the year 1266, plus 34, as you say, comes to 1300.

Then, again, I have not been able to establish to my own satisfaction the validity of an assumed starting date for the Commedia of 8 April 1300. Other sources, for example, give an assumed starting date for the Commedia of 25 March. Further, subsequent to my last post, I found a site, which provides the following Gregorian-to-Julian conversion data/days of the week for the year 1300 (apparently, a leap year):

On the other hand, on what basis should we assume that the Commedia takes place in the year 1300? Why not the year previous of 1299? That is, assuming 1266 years had passed since the Crucifixion, but that the Crucifixion took place in AD 33. Following your point of attack, as I understand it, if Dante was born in 1266, he would then be just two months shy of his 33rd birthday—viz. assuming his birth took place under the astrological sign of Gemini.

By the bye, it perhaps should be noted that, per Church convention as I understand it, if Easter fell on 25 March, the date of the Annunciation was moved; further, each “day” of the Easter season began, similar to Jewish tradition, the evening prior. Thus, for instance, Good Friday began on the evening of Maundy Thursday, and Easter Sunday began on the evening of Holy Saturday.

The year 1300 contains a "13", and 13 possibly meant death.

Your question, here, raises an issue, which has continually perplexed me—viz. the association of the number “13” with the Tarot’s Death trump. Why?

Incidentally, some might find the article, below, in re Newton’s dating of the Crucifixion of interest: